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The smartphone is basically the holy grail: study

Just about everyone in the marketing and technology fields has accepted that mobile and more specifically, the mobile internet, are really, really important. That’s true today, and it’s only going to be more so in the future.

But many believe that mobile is more than just really, really important; they believe it will be far and away the most important channel as more and more consumers become armed with smartphones.

According to a study conducted by market research firm Ipsos OTX on behalf of Google, that belief has some supporting evidence.

The study, conducted at the end of 2010, polled more than 5,000
smartphone owners about their mobile internet habits. The results:

81% of smartphone owners browse the internet.

77% use search and 90% of searches conducted result in some action being taken.

95% of smartphone owners have sought local
information online.

79% use their smartphones to assist with the shopping process, and 70% use the phone while in the store.

71% of smartphone owners “search on their phones because of an ad exposure“.

If the numbers are to be believed, the smartphone is, for obvious
reasons, akin to the holy grail for marketers and retailers. After all,
what other channel or device is driving these kinds of numbers?

There’s
good reason for the smartphone’s potency in everything from search
marketing to retail: sophisticated mobile phones are utilitarian devices
capable of delivering instant gratification when consumers want and
need it most. That translates into intent.

When somebody searches for “new computers”
on Google, it’s reasonable to assume that he or she is potentially
interested in buying a new computer at some point in the not too distant
future. This intent explains why advertisers shell out billions of
dollars a year on Google AdWords ads. But mobile users often deliver
even greater intent.

When a consumer searches for “HP desktop prices”
from his or her smartphone, there’s a good chance that she’s either in a
store looking to make sure that there isn’t a better deal online before
she completes an offline purchase or that she’s gone to the store to
make a decision on a model and is ready to buy online.

Obviously,
not all smartphone-based mobile internet excursions or searches are
created equal, but the nature of the device means that, for many
markets, activity is going to be backed up by intent that’s stronger than can typically be expected in other channels.

Even if one
questions whether, say, 90% of mobile searches really result in a meaningful
action being taken, logic dictates that a relatively high figure is to be expected.

For companies, the imperative is clear: if you’re not looking at
the ways you can deliver content and information effectively over
mobile, you’ll increasingly lose out.

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Websites should always be designed
to deliver an engaging user experience. To succeed, marketers need an
understanding of how online communication works and they need to be clear about
how a business can serve the needs of its customers on the web.

The websites that are succeeding online are the ones that concentrate on the delivery
of quality user experience, functionality and added value elements such as
personalisation to really engage with visitors.

Content may be king. At least that’s what many companies in the business of producing content think for obvious reasons.

Take Demand Media, for instance. It’s so confident that its content is an appreciating asset that will produce value over a long period of time that it amortizes the costs of producing content over five years.

Just how important is being on the first page of a Google search result page? Just how valuable is owning the top spot?

Following recent updates Google has made to its algorithm, Optify, a
marketing software vendor, decided to create a new CTR curve based on
data it has collected on behalf of a subset of its B2B and B2C clients.

I’ve recently been searching for a new place to live (Contrary to
popular belief, Econsultancy staff are occasionally allowed to leave
their desks), which means I’ve been spending even more time than usual
online, browsing the ‘to let’ ads on property websites.

And getting closer to a brain haemorrhage on an hourly basis.

Estate agents and larger aggregate property sites are ideally placed to
exploit the massive uptake in web usage we’ve seen in the last decade,
yet their sites are usually among the very worst examples of
design and usability you’ll ever encounter, while the offline experience
is also disjointed and frustrating.

While it’s clear that the agent can’t always be to blame, larger
companies in particular need to get their act together fast as some
providers are surging ahead, leaving their less useful competitors in
the dust.

As an excuse to go house-hunting during working hours and have a bit of
a rant in general, I wanted to run through some of the common mistakes
I’ve seen recently.

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